It was a revealing day for U.S. Middle East policy. In one corner, the UN Security Council pondered the Goldstone report. U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff was diplomatically precise and morally obtuse. Procedurally, the matter didn’t belong at the council, he explained. And as for the substance:

“But we do take seriously the allegations in the report,” Wolff said. He urged Israel to “seriously investigate” the allegations while deploring Hamas’ incapability to undertake self-examination. “We continue to have serious concern about the report, its unbalanced focus on Israel, the overly broad scope of its recommendations and its sweeping conclusions of law,” Wolff said.

You couldn’t tell that what was under examination was nothing short of a vicious and biased attack on Israel’s right of self-defense. The measure may get shunted back to the Human Rights Council, where the likes of Libya and Chad can pontificate on human rights. But if you were looking for some moral clarity from the Obama team, you’d be badly disappointed.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Obama administration’s “we need no sanctions” sentiment was rebuffed by a lopsided 414-6 vote on a measure assisting state and local governments that “divest from companies investing in Iran’s petroleum and natural gas sector” by protecting their fund managers from lawsuits. It’s not much, but it’s more than the Obama administration asked for — or wants.

So that’s what we get: innocuous baby-step sanctions from Congress and rhetorical timidity from the administration. And in the real world, Iran works away on its nuclear sites.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 4:57 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.